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Engineering Education versus Vocational Training at a Tribal College: Implications for Students, School, and Community

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Conference

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Seattle, Washington

Publication Date

June 14, 2015

Start Date

June 14, 2015

End Date

June 17, 2015

ISBN

978-0-692-50180-1

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

Community Engagement in Engineering Education Projects

Tagged Division

Community Engagement Division

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

6

Page Numbers

26.623.1 - 26.623.6

DOI

10.18260/p.23961

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/23961

Download Count

511

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Paper Authors

biography

Robert V. Pieri North Dakota State University

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Dr. Robert Pieri is Professor of Mechanical Engineering at North Dakota State University (NDSU) in
Fargo, ND. He has many conference publications on engineering education and design. His primary
interest areas include: Engineering Education, CADD, Design, Fracture Mechanics, Materials Science and
Alternative Energy Options. Prior to joining NDSU, he worked for Allied-Signal Corporation and in the
aircraft supply industry. Prior to his industrial experience he taught for 10 years at the US Air Force
Academy. Prior to his time at USAFA, Bob was a Research & Development Engineer with the US Air
Force, studying problems of pollution in the earth’s atmosphere. One of his dissertations involves the
environment and policy decisions that could affect it. Dr. Pieri has degrees from the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst, Thayer School at Dartmouth College and Carnegie – Mellon University in
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. For the academic year 2003- 2004, Bob was on the faculty at Turtle Mountain
Community College in Belcourt,N.D. where he taught Math and Engineering classes. This is the basis for
his current interest in Native Americans into Engineering. Bob, originally from the northeast area of the
USA, has been a resident of Fargo, ND since 1996.

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Timothy D. Legg North Dakota State University

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Timothy Legg, is an 2004 alumni of Iowa State University's Computer Engineering program. He worked and consulted in the Chicago area in topics as diverse as industrial coatings, semiconductor fabrication and lean manufacturing. As of 2011, he was additionally enlisted at Cankdeska Cikana Community College for the NSF's PEEC program to teach Pre-Engineering and Mathematics courses. In 2015, he has enrolled as a graduate student at North Dakota State University

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Ann Marie Vallie Turtle Mountain Community College

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Ann Vallie graduated from North Dakota State University in 2010 with a B.A. in Electrical Engineering. Joined Turtle Mountain Community College in 2011 as the Pre-Engineering Instructor for the Pre-Engineering Education Collaboration which is funded through NSF.

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Lori Nelson Fort Berthold Community College

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Joshua Jason Mattes Sitting Bull College

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Michael Maloy Parker Cankdeska Cikana Community College

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Mike Parker received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from North Dakota State University. He served in the US Army as a reliability engineer and vehicle test officer. He has been an agricultural producer in his home state of ND as well as being involved in local manufacturing and oil well hydraulic fracturing. He is currently an instructor at Cankdeska Cikana Community College in the Pre-engineering program.

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biography

G. Padmanabhan North Dakota State University

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G. Padmanabhan, Ph. D., P. E., M. ASEE, F. ASEE is a professor of civil engineering at North Dakota State University (NDSU), Fargo, North Dakota. He has been on the NDSU faculty for more than 30 years teaching and engaging in research. His expertise is in water resources systems and modeling. He served as the Director of North Dakota Water Resources Research Institute for the last 12 years. He is a long standing member of ASEE. He has been active in STEM education outreach activities to North Dakota Native American students at the college, high and middle school levels for the last 15 years. He has received funding from the Office of Naval research, National Science Foundation, and NASA for his STEM outreach activities directed toward North Dakota Native American students. He has presented in ASEE conferences and published in their Proceedings. He has also been involved in organizing ASEE North Midwest Region conferences.

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Abstract

Engineering Education versus Vocational Training at a Tribal College: Implications for Students, Schooland CommunityThis paper will discuss some of the challenges that may come about from a tribal college offering bothvocational training and professional engineering programs. The paper will describe synergisticopportunities as well as other situations that could arise as a result of external support, historic politicalsituation and competitions for students, resources and time in the communities making up the servicearea for most tribal colleges. Potential impacts on the surrounding community both immediate andlong-term will be discussed with consideration of implications for economic and infrastructuredevelopment. Desirable characteristics of the resources needed to support each program will also bedescribed with special emphasis on faculty, their availability and continual professional development.Context of these considerations to regional and national situations will also be discussed with emphasison opportunities for mainstream institutions. Comparison to situations faced by mainstreaminstitutions will be compared and potential ramifications will also be discussed.

Pieri, R. V., & Legg, T. D., & Vallie, A. M., & Nelson, L., & Mattes, J. J., & Parker, M. M., & Padmanabhan , G. (2015, June), Engineering Education versus Vocational Training at a Tribal College: Implications for Students, School, and Community Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.23961

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2015 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015